Learning to Change

While reading the post 'Changing the Title IX narrative: A prescription for change' on the Sports, Media, & Society blog, it surprisingly got me thinking about the reading this week by Frances E. Willard, 'How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle'. While these to readings initially seemed unrelated, as I read the blog post I began to understand more how they are actually quite similar. The blog post discusses how women's sports activists are gathering to recognize National Girls and Women in Sports day and to encourage people to keep pushing for the benefits of Title IX. Something very important that the blog pointed out was that the majority of institutions that fall within the guidelines of the law laid by Title IX do so merely out of compliance. While this is still a good thing, simply doing the bare minimum will not help advance women's rights and equality in sport. As the blog said, we need to find ways to adopt new ways to frame sports in order to de-masculinize the entire concept of athletics. It was at this point in the reading that I thought back to the Willard article that I had read. In the article Willard wrote of learning to ride a bicycle at the age of 53. It was an extremely challenging adventure and many people thought that this was an almost impossible task for a woman of her age to undertake. But Frances Willard pushed through and in about three months she was riding. I think this anecdote by Willard describes exactly how things will be for our society in regards to pushing for women's equality in sport. Things will have to change, and therefore be different from before, and this scares many people. But we must push on anyhow, even though it will be a change from the 'old' ways. Many people think that our media coverage and the way we view female athletes is ok, merely because we are used to it. But just as Willard learned to ride a bike, the second time was easier than the first, the third time was easier than the second, and so on until it is done without any conscious effort, so must be our efforts to challenge existing cultural meanings and ideas attached to women in sport